Althouse: At the Stop Sign Café...

March 10, 2012

At the Stop Sign Café...

... you could be starting something.

28 comments:

Jason said...: Notice his stop sign didnt contain words like "leeching", "mooching", "subsidizing", or "redistributing".

But he's all for stopping "sadness". After all, the solution to everything is to get in a big circle, hold hands, and start singing songs.; 3/10/12, 11:42 PM
bagoh20 said...: Let's be realistic - just pick one and I'm with ya, but if that's your plan on that sign, I should tell you up front that I'm not available for a lot of late nights or weekends. I got my own sign too you know.; 3/10/12, 11:45 PM
Synova said...: Stop negativity by refusing to listen to the vandals that find their value in the destruction they can accomplish.

John Carter of Mars was a fun movie. Also, it's something you can take the kids to see.

Also, the baby Tharks are simultaneously repulsive beyond belief and utterly adorable. Little green slugs with tusks. Slimy green slugs with tusks.

Awwwww.; 3/10/12, 11:52 PM
chickelit said...: Arrêt!; 3/10/12, 11:56 PM
Synova said...: Actually, the baby Tharks are a subtle political statement (possibly unintentional). The babies are hatched in a communal nest and when they're born the adults grab one to raise, so no one has any notion of biological parent... except for the progressive leader Tars Tarkas and his daughter Sola, who is continually in trouble for not being brutal enough. Their relationship is a deep secret that John Carter guesses and when it's found out Tars Tarkas is deposed by a brutish traditionalist. It was hard to miss the idea that familial love was the reason that Tars Tarkas had better ideas about how society should function.; 3/11/12, 12:02 AM
bagoh20 said...: A lot of the things he's asking to be stopped are hard to disagree with. For example:

"Government control wasting"
"Power greed spending"
"Default profiling"
"Sadness pollution"
"Poverty thieves"
"Segregation tax"
etc.

Many of these are serious problems that are rarely talked about.; 3/11/12, 12:31 AM
Carnifex said...: I would be embarrassed to be an adult holding a sign like that.

Would love to see John Carter. Read the books as a child. Was a big fan of Burroughs. That was before I became all socially aware, and realized he was using allegories. Back then I had an innocent wonder at living on a different planet with less gravity. And swashbuckling heroes saving hot red martian princesses, with their heaving bosoms, and little trampy leather outfits.

Escapism has lost its innocence, and with that loss, I find I need it more than ever.

But like Kirk when Spock's brother offered to take away his pain, my pain made me who I am today. Would I "kill" that person just so I can have a more comfortable oblivion? Would I wish to be "Comfortably Numb"?

I try to get my wife to listen to the "Wall" album, but she doesn't get it. She listens to dream of better times that never existed.

I listen to try to reach that numbed state. All the music that I listen to touches me in places I can't touch myself. And because I am a large personality, I have a large range in music.

As a child, I had to listen to classic country. No electric guitars, or drums, no sirree Bob. In grade school I listened to classical, and bluegrass. In high school I got introduced to the Doors, the Who, and John Denver. I drifted from bluegrass to celtic, from celtic to new age, and from new age to technopop. I fell in love with the Floyd Boys, and the new rockabilly of the big Top. Brian Setzer passed through. Along with Debussy, and Gershwin. Now my wife can't figure out why I would listen to Eminem, or Jewel.

And I think I listen, because for a short while, for the time it takes the song to fade to silence, my pain, that which I hold in my heart so miserly, that I can't turn loose for fear of losing "me", is quieted. I am Tantalos.; 3/11/12, 1:29 AM
Carnifex said...: And this is why I need soothing...

The Philips Co. is going to start marketing a "new" green light bulb. The Department of Energy offered a $10 million(paging Dr. Evil)reward for the development of a new bulb to replace your old incandescent bulbs, that meet the DoE strict guidelines.

They DoE estimates that the bulb will save $3.9 billion(paging Dr. Evil) per year in energy costs.

Sounds great huh?! How many can I put ya' down for? The Cost? Oh not really germaine to saving the Earth right? And stopping Global Warming? And the Polar Bears, someone must save the polar bears.

Well, if you MUST know it's only $50...yes, per bulb. What kinda smart ass question was that.

So the "Great and Powerful" Obama paid a company $10,000,000 to produce a 60w bulb that runs on 10w, that will cost the purchaser $50. Meanwhile, you can purchase CFL bulbs for $10($5 if you watch for sales) that produce 60w of light for 13w. Working out the price difference, and amortizing it, it will only take you 2 centuries to pay off the new improved light bulb.(this doesn't factor in the cost of electricity rising do to stupid Obama energy policies)

Worst President EVER!; 3/11/12, 3:00 AM
gadfly said...: From Live Science and Pew Research comes word that:

- Conservatives are happier than liberals
- Republicans are happier than Democrats
- The rich are happier than the poor
- Married people are happier than the unmarried
- Church goers are happier than those who do not attend
- Sunbelt residents are happier than anyone else

Our stop sign owner must have struck out on all counts.; 3/11/12, 3:13 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I'm in the middle of reading Climbing Parnassus, and it's depressing me.; 3/11/12, 5:27 AM
edutcher said...: One this guy forgot:

Stop using veiled threats to scare mature women who only want to record what's going on.

(caplight was right; Ann is a gutsy lady); 3/11/12, 5:33 AM
rhhardin said...: One of my atomic clocks is having daylight problems. It sets to various non-existing time zones each time it's reset, always getting the minutes and seconds exactly right, but putting the hours east of the mid-Atlantic somewhere.

This is aside from the major daylight time event scheduled to happen at 8pm tonight, when all the clocks go back to standard time, owing to an unfortunate bug in the La Crosse software.

Which is why the clocks were only $9 at the grocery store, many years ago, having been sold a few times to the lowest bidder.

Never believe an atomic clock around the time change days. The minutes are great but the hour might be anything.; 3/11/12, 7:00 AM
enicar333 said...: It's the display of someone who has the innocence and the simplicity of a Child.

I wonder where the STOP sign came from? Examining the picture, I notice the two small holes for the bolts that would have help it to a post. If that sign was removed from somewhere - it could lead to a tragedy resulting in death and destruction of property - AND, the taxpayers who paid for the sign will have to pay again to replace it.

A thoughtless thinker.; 3/11/12, 7:02 AM
Paco Wové said...: - Conservatives are happier than liberals
- Republicans are happier than Democrats

That would explain a lot about the commenting patterns hereabouts.; 3/11/12, 7:11 AM
Phil 314 said...: My sun came up the same time today; how 'bout yours?; 3/11/12, 7:35 AM
Frank Gregoire said...: STOP! Stealing stop signs; 3/11/12, 8:00 AM
purplepenquin said...: In one post Ann says that there is nothing wrong with crossing-over in a primary in order to vote for someone you think will weaken the other party's chance of winning the general election, but in another she suggests that the mere act of having a recall election is akin to subverting democracy.

That doesn't make much sense to me...can someone please explain how one person can hold both of those opinions?

Also, couldn't help but notice that the reports from Ann&Meade about yesterday's rally focused only on the few rude signs in the crowd and one boorish encounter, but they insist that they are "neutral" in their coverage of these events. Did nothing at all "positive" really happen to them? Was every sign they saw really as nasty as the 3-4 pictures they posted?; 3/11/12, 8:18 AM
kjbe said...: Many of these are serious problems that are rarely talked about.

Could it be because we're more interested in looking at our differences, rather that our similarities? The solutions are found in the overlap.

Purplepenguin, I have the same questions, and would add, "Why is that?"; 3/11/12, 9:16 AM
rhhardin said...: Stop signs go silent sometimes.

Say a traffic flagman tires of holding his stop sign and instead leans it on his car, a car which he then stands next to, expecting that traffic will still stop.

Most people take it as a silent object laid aside, to be taken up again later when it is necessary to direct traffic,and blow right by.

The holding of the sign connects it to an intention.

A permanently erected sign is taken to be held by the authorities.; 3/11/12, 9:35 AM
garage mahal said...: Also, couldn't help but notice that the reports from Ann&Meade about yesterday's rally focused only on the few rude signs in the crowd and one boorish encounter, but they insist that they are "neutral" in their coverage of these events..

Perception management. It's the same intent behind the MacIver Institute when they cover the rallies. And you can see the same idiots that post here over and over on these threads lap up it up like warm milk. It enforces what they already believe.; 3/11/12, 9:35 AM
David said...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPTsmswQVwg

Michael Jackson

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'; 3/11/12, 9:41 AM
Sydney said...: If everyone in the world embraced the central tenet of Christianity to love one another and put aside all selfishness, most of his objectives would be met - except the alleviation of pain and suffering. Arthritis would still be with us. (not to mention other more painful illnesses.) I wonder if he's a Christian.; 3/11/12, 9:49 AM
KCFleming said...: Yeah, garage, Althouse is just selecting the worst things to show.

Not shown are the warm and fuzzy hugs of forgiving love paper mâché heads, and signs seeking to compromise union demands and taxpayer concerns.

Why don't you post a link to those for us? It would convince me how agreeable all those public workers really are, and not at all the lunatics I saw on all the pics and videos over the past year; 3/11/12, 9:54 AM
Hagar said...: Purplepenquin,
That AA professes neutrality as to the underlying issue(s) does not mean that she has to be neutral about the means you have chosen to express your side of the argument.

And that is what the Meadhouse reportage has been about, if you think back about it.; 3/11/12, 9:54 AM
Hagar said...: Come to think of it, that you perceive mere photographs documenting your behavior to be a partisan attack from the opposition, speaks to your own opinion of that behavior.; 3/11/12, 10:01 AM
garage mahal said...: Yeah, garage, Althouse is just selecting the worst things to show.

It's the same reason the MacIver Institute "covers" the rallies. To make you think this is only who the anti_walker people are!.; 3/11/12, 10:14 AM
LarryK said...: It's too high to get over (yeah yeah), It's too low to get under (yeah yeah), You're stuck in the middle (yeah yeah), and the pain is thunder....; 3/11/12, 10:30 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: It's all an illusion! Althouse is a magician! She probably made those nasty signs herself and paid conservatives to carry them! There can be no other explanation!; 3/11/12, 12:05 PM